The founder of the popular AOKP (Android Open Kang Project) Android ROM has just joined forces with Cyanogen Inc. Roman Birg will join Cyanogen as an employee in an unspecified position, but presumably he will be working on development.

AOKP is widely seen as the second most popular Android ROM behind CyanogenMod, and the notion that its founder will join up with Cyanogen seems promising for future CyanogenMod development.

Phandroid, which first reported the news, called it “exciting” saying that “only good things can come from this.”

Birg may be gone but AOKP lives on.

CyanogenMod rising

CyanogenMod is the most closely watched of the Android ROMs right now since it is the first to try and move from a community-driven open source project into a full-fledged business. In September, Cyanogen Inc. raised $7 million in funding to start creating its own Android-based mobile platform to compete with Apple, Google, and Microsoft. It later raised another $23 million.

The company has already put its forked version of Android on one phone, the Oppo N1, a special edition phone that went on sale in late 2013. A second phone from startup OnePlus is expected to ship with CyanogenMod before the spring.

Beyond preloading its software on phones, Cyanogen is also focused on improving CyanogenMod's stock apps, as Google leaves Android's open-source stock apps to wither on the vine. Earlier in January, GalleryNext, a beta version of CyanogenMod’s gallery app, went live for early testers in Google Play.

Ian is an independent writer based in Israel who has never met a tech subject he didn't like. He primarily covers Windows, PC and gaming hardware, video and music streaming services, social networks, and browsers. When he's not covering the news he's working on how-to tips for PC users, or tuning his eGPU setup.